When a young boy enters a mysterious oriental shop and meets the wise old shopkeeper, he learns the story of Lloyd, The Green Ninja. They are transported to the Lego World of Ninjago, a Lego City in which the evil Lord Garmadon wishes to take over. Trying to stop him are the Ninjas, six high school students lead by Lloyd the Green Ninja to fight against Garmadon and his armies. Despite being a hero as the Green Ninja, Lloyd is shunned by the community for being the son of Garmadon. After a devastating attack, the Ninjas, Master Wu and Garmadon set off to find The Ultimate, Ultimate Weapon. The Lego Ninjago Movie features the vocal talents of Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Michael Peña, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Woods, Fred Armisen, Olivia Munn, Justin Theroux, and Abbi Jacobson.

Image via Warner Brothers

Unlike The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie, where the movie appeals to both adults and kids, Ninjago is solely a kid’s movie. There is no clever humour that is targeted to adults, in fact there was very few times I laughed. There is one joke that was over played and that was Garmadon referring to Lloyd as “L Loyd”. It got old quick, I have seen Key and Peele do the joke before and they did it better. Most of the humour was targeted at children, but even the children in my cinema didn’t laugh every time, which is an interesting sign. Don’t get me wrong the movie wasn’t completely humourless; it is just that many of the jokes did not land in the intended way.

Image via Warner Brothers

Very little about The Lego Ninjago Movie stood out to me in terms of the characters and story. The story itself was very generic; the hero needs to go on a journey of self-discovery to defeat the villain only to discover he had the power with in him the whole time. The hero’s father is also his greatest enemy creating an awkward father son interaction throughout the movie. The hero is also an outcast because of who his father is, with no one accepting him when he isn’t the Green Ninja. I couldn’t tell you any of the other Ninja’s names besides Lloyd either, or which colour stood out to me. The movie felt like Power Rangers for a young audience, and Power Rangers is already aimed at a young audience.

Image via Warner Brothers

Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of positives about The Lego Ninjago Movie, the humour doesn’t work, the story isn’t strong and the characters do not stand out. I was not previously aware of Ninjago; apparently there is a big following for it so I do not know if this is a respectful adaptation. This was a massive misstep for Lego and Warner Brothers who had made two excellent Lego movies prior to this. Ninjago lacked the heart that The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie had, and though they tried something new with the way they incorporated the human world, it just didn’t work as well as it did before.

Image via Warner Brothers

Recommendations:

If you have kids that like Ninjago they will probably like it. I wouldn’t recommend it to non-fans or adults.

The Lego Ninjago Movie scores 4/10

Thanks for reading my review of The Lego Ninjago Movie. Have you seen the movie? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comment section below.

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